Nothing: What Pakistan is doing to find Cheema's abductors

Just in case you were one of the few people in Pakistan or any other part of the world, for that matter, who thought that the six-hour abduction of Umar Cheema over the weekend of September 4 and 5 in Islamabad was going to be investigated and the culprits--men "dressed in police uniform"--brought to justice, here is a reality check:

The official Associated
Press of Pakistan reported on Wednesday that the "Lahore High Court Chief
Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif on Wednesday adjourned the hearing looking into
Cheema's abduction and beating until October 6." Cheema says he was
abducted, beaten, hung upside down, and humiliated while being videotaped.

But really, this case doesn't look like it's going anywhere.
I had messaged Cheema Tuesday for an update, and here's what he told me about
the state of the investigation. This is pretty much a cut-and-paste from his e-mail
message:

There is no follow-up in sight. Yes, the police have
questioned me, but they are mostly concentrating on the aspect of personal
enmity, not on the role of state agencies. I was disappointed when I heard
their questions. The senior police officer who heads the investigation was of
the view that putting blame on [state intelligence] agencies is tantamount to
closing the file. But I don't think he is on the right track and I told him
repeatedly that there is no private enemy after me nor I ever have nurtured a
grudge with anybody to such an extreme level.

You can also judge the level of seriousness in that I still
don't know if the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has been constituted and
anyway I was told informally by officials that the JIT will "just be a
formality." The prime minister's pledge to hold a judicial inquiry has
emerged as another joke as there is no progress nor any serving/retired judge
had been nominated for the purpose.

I don't think if the government is serious in locating the
culprits. Their publicly expressed resolve and the commitments they made were
public consumption, nothing more.

None of this is unexpected. I pointed out in a blog
entry on September 9 that "at least in terms of murders, there has been no
investigation with subsequent prosecution of anyone who has killed a journalist
in Pakistan beyond that of the case of the American Daniel Pearl, The Wall
Street Journal reporter who was abducted in January 2002 and killed about
a month later." Cheema doesn't have the U.S. State Department and the one of
the world's most powerful newspapers pushing for an investigation into his case
they way they did for Pearl.

There was an investigation into the brutal
killing of Hayatullah Khan in the market of his home village of Miram Shan
in North Waziristan in June 2006. Khan had been held for more than six months
before he was gunned down. High Court Justice Mohammed Reza Khan conducted an
investigation, but the results have never been made public.

Khan's death at least warranted an investigation. Umar
Cheema's ordeal looks set to go the way of the other crimes carried out on
journalists for doing their job--nowhere.

Bob Dietz, coordinator of CPJ’s Asia Program, has reported across the continent for news outlets such as CNN and Asiaweek. He has led numerous CPJ missions, including ones to Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Follow him on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.